Over the last year I have been criss-crossing the country giving a talk called Achieving Zen With Auto Layout to any conference or user group that would host me. Speaking is not my primary goal. I am not an ex-developer. I just enjoy doing it a few times a year, especially since I spend so much time sitting in front of a computer in a solitary room typing. Even the most antisocial developers need a bit of human interaction.

The talk has been well received far beyond my expectations. Everywhere I have presented has given it high marks and attributed it with helping them get over the hurdles of learning and using Auto Layout in their jobs.

I have had it in the back of my head that I wanted to turn the talk into a book for a while. Every time I have thought about it, however, I have pushed the thought away. Writing a book is hard. Dealing with publishers is a pain. You don’t make much money doing it. Why bother?

Despite all the reasons to not do the book, I kept coming back to the main reason I wanted to do it: I like helping people. I like when people tell me my talk has helped them learn a new technology. I enjoy having people say they learn new things from CocoaRadio.

So, I started writing. Not full-time. Not even part-time. I just started writing when I had time. Over the last few months, I have amassed enough content to generate what I consider to be the first 1/3 of the book.

Achieving Zen With Auto Layout is the eBook companion to my talk of the same name, but with the goal of being much more expanded than what I am able to do in a 45-60 minute on-stage presentation.

This is a beta book right now. There are no screenshots (iOS 8 does still have a tiny bit of NDA that prevents those), copy editing hasn’t been done, and I still need to hire an illustrator to do a cover and some other things in the book for me. Content-wise though, I’m proud of what is there so far, and I’m excited to finish the rest of the book in time for the iOS 8 launch later this fall.

You can purchase Achieving Zen With Auto Layout today and get access to a PDF of the current state of the book, as well as a private GitHub repository where I am writing and storing all the sample code as I go. So far this has proven to be a wonderful way to write, because buyers of the book are able to provide direct feedback to me about the book so I can iron out any confusion or missing things I may not have thought of during my first draft.